Bitterness as a mental illness

I just saw this article on-line. I thought it was interesting, and would explain the behavior of some people on advance net relgion forums just to give an example:


http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-bitterness25-2009may25,0,4544029.story

I wondered what would classify someone as truly embittered--are there degrees? Are modern people more embittered than others in the past?

I also was interested in the connection to revenge. My take on revenge is that it's usually about reviving, or reassambling, a way of being that been lost, one that paradoxically operates through destruction of another or another's property. On the surface, its goal is to take from someone what has been taken from you, but it's more complex, because the act of taken is meant also to be a restoration. Except it seldom is one.

Which helps me answer my initial question, actually--recenge goes way back in literature--I think of Medea, for example. But it's also worth noting that tales of revenge seem to peak at critical social moments--one notes, for example, that Nero was ruling while Seneca wrote, or that England was marching towards enormous social upheaval when revenge plays became all the rage.

was that great post on narcissism you did a while back, maybe 18 months ago.

The part that stood out for me: Instead of dealing with the loss with the help of family and friends, they cannot let go of the feeling of being victimized.

So much of this has to do with the sense of deserving to get everything one wants, so that any disappointment is an injustice. It's like the auditions for American Idol, where the most atrocious singers feel truly astounded to hear that they can't sing and view it as a personal assault to be told they won't be a superstar.

Maybe it's related to the whole movement to raise everyone's self-esteem to Caesar-like levels.

there is so much power in forgiveness. Without forgiveness, there is bitterness. Seeing yaruu on syracuse reminded me of the difference between him and another. Where yaruu forgave and lived, the other seems to be drowning in his bitterness, he most certainly isn't living. One is a victim, the other a survivor.

cradle, that empires and countries were marching towards geat social unheaval when, for instance, all those "revengers tragedy" plays became popular. There are some great examples of those, but I tend to enjoy Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. Somehow I don't think the current economic unheaveal will produce great theatre. It will continue to produce violent and bloody real life drama, I'm afraid.

And Just4-Forgiveness has great power. The person being freed is oneself, but some people don't want to be freed from the mistaken belief that biterness and anger gives them power, when it merely kills them from the inside.

AustenFan wrote:And Just4-Forgiveness has great power. The person being freed is oneself, but some people don't want to be freed from the mistaken belief that biterness and anger gives them power, when it merely kills them from the inside.

So true. It seems that bitter, vengeful people think they are drawing strength by clinging to bitterness and anger. Facing alternate emotional states (viz., forgiveness, empathy) is too frightening. I bet most bitter people don't even realize that.

AustenFan wrote:Somehow I don't think the current economic unheaveal will produce great theatre. It will continue to produce violent and bloody real life drama, I'm afraid.

If it makes you feel any better, the later plays are pretty nasty and bloody and weird, and have long earned the title of "decadent" and even "potboilers." I'm not sure great art comes from angry fearful people.

In that releases us from being victim

But there is real power also (and not always negative to the individual) in revenge.

"I want to surpass so and so and become the world's great artist".

The double edge sword